Word Origin & History

parallel 1540s, from M.Fr. parallèle, from L. parallelus, from Gk. parallelos "parallel," from para allelois "beside one another," from para "beside" + allelois "each other," from allos "other" (see alias). The verb is first recorded 1590s. Parallel bars as gymnastics apparatus are recorded from 1868.

Example Sentences for parallel

The history of the human mind—offers no parallel to his career.

Cooley says of them, "They are so utterly untrue, that they have not their parallel in any language."

To the front beyond the nipa houses and their palm-fringed gardens, lay unseen the parallel, intrenched lines of the Insurgents.

Both had a nucleus, and both had tails, which were parallel to each other.

Should we chance to meet in society, we would be two parallel lines, never uniting, however near we might approach.

A parallel may perhaps serve to save us a good deal of the work.

Generally a special knife with two and three parallel blades is used.

The shape is similar, but, whereas they are parallel here, they are not so over there.

Sometimes they ran up in parallel columns, banding the western heaven.

Parallel to this question arises another: what became of Cain's posterity?